Very Big Dinosaurs Bring Very Big Problems

Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio Expansion Plans

The Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio (Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio), located in the city of Trelew in the Chubut Province of Patagonia (Argentina), has announced plans to expand. Expansion is needed as this regional museum is going to be home to the world’s largest dinosaur, a Titanosaur whose fossilised remains featured in the BBC/National Geographic documentary “Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur” which aired in January this year.

The museum was founded in 1990 and to begin with it operated with just three employees and a relatively small collection, however, after a number of important fossil discoveries in the area, the museum’s catalogue has increased substantially. The 2011 discovery of the fossilised remains of seven giant, herbivorous dinosaurs at a location nick-named the “graveyard of giants”, really helped to put the city of Trelew and its museum on the map and in a press release, communications and marketing director Florencia Gigena explained that the cohort of scientists would increase to sixty-five by 2020.

Filming the Fossil Dig for the Documentary Programme

Filming the documentary “Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur”.

Picture Credit: Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio

A Giant Hall for a Giant Dinosaur

The museum intends to greatly enlarge its current exhibition space and to build an adjoining university campus that will accommodate up to twenty students. This will help with preparation work and provide a ready source of willing volunteers for field work as well as giving the students the opportunity to work in close association with a commercial museum. In addition, a giant hall will be constructed to house the Titanosaur exhibit. The American Museum of Natural History (New York), already has an enormous replica of the largest Titanosaur from the fossil quarry. This exhibit measures thirty-seven metres in length. It is so large that part of the head and neck of the American mount sticks out of the main gallery.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Palaeontology Egidio Feruglio

Behind the scenes during the Titanosaur filming.

Picture Credit: Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio

The picture above shows, presenter Sir David Attenborough and the film crew preparing to film the giant 2.4 metre long thigh bone (femur) of the giant Titanosaur. With so many Titanosaur fossil bones to study, (over two hundred), the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio had to expand, the existing facilities were simply not large enough to house the fossils of a dinosaur that could have weighed as much as a dozen African elephants.

The giant Titanosaur has yet to be formally described and no genus name has been erected yet. A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur explained that a scientific paper on this remarkable fossil find was likely to be published soon and that the name of this new dinosaur would probably reflect the local area in which the fossils were found. As part of the company’s outreach work in schools, Everything Dinosaur sets a challenge to school children to try and work out a name for this massive, plant-eating Cretaceous reptile.

Everything Dinosaur staff have been lucky enough to visit the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, it is a splendid regional museum and it houses more than giant titanosaurid fossils. For example, the museum sets out to tell the story of life on Earth and as well as a very diverse collection of dinosaur fossils from Patagonia, the museum is also home to a range of Palaeozoic specimens including ancient insects. The Cenozoic is well represented too, with a number of excellent examples of Pleistocene mammals on display.

Everything Dinosaur is delighted to hear of the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio expansion and we wish this wonderful museum every success.